Saving Daylight

This time of year, I have about 2 hours max from the time I get home until it gets dark. So if I want to do any riding, I have to be ready. Ready to change clothes at warp speed, find boots, and head to the pasture. On a good day, I can call the horses and they come running. But now that they are moved to the last ungrazed pasture, they might glance in my direction as if to say “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Daylight Saving Time will soon come to an end and that two-hour window will be reduced to a one-hour window. And the temps will continue to drop. How depressing to think about the end of fall and the beginning of the great freeze!


I’m told the Farmers Almanac warns of a long, cold winter. I haven’t yet picked up this book of doom but hoping the farmers who write it (do farmers write it and what are their qualifications?) are just a bunch of crotchety old men who like nothing more than to complain about the weather and stress out the rest of us. Its bad enough we have the Big Fat Lying Weatherman this past season promising good things for a long awaited camping trip or declaring today is the day to cut your hay and then ruining it all when a monsoon rolled in! I can just see the Big Fat Lying Weatherman and Crotchety Farmer watching us behind a half closed door and snickering at our misfortune!

Autumn still holds about a month of weekend riding. The kind of ride where the temps are just cool enough to require a sweatshirt or a jacket. Maybe pulling out the riding gloves in the morning. The sound of leaves crunching under the hooves of the horse; the color along the trails seeming to change before your eyes. And if one more camping trip is squeezed in, there will be soup to warm us after the ride and we’ll move our camp chairs a little closer to the fire to warm us from the fall crispness. What a perfect way to say goodbye to the riding season. Enjoy the daylight while you can.